India landed a craft near the Moons south pole on Wednesday . The launch is scheduled to take place on Monday after bad weather pushed it back by a day . The rocket will carry a lander expected to reach the Moons surface in four to six months . JAXA is aiming to land it within metres of a specific target on the Moon far less than the usual range of several kilometres .
It will also carry an Xray imaging satellite designed to investigate the evolution of the universe . India’s historic success came days after a Russian probe crashed in the same region and four years after the previous Indian attempt failed at the last moment .
Japan has also had problems with launch rockets with failures after liftoff of the nextgeneration H model in March and the normally reliable solidfuel Epsilon the previous October . Last month the test of an Epsilon S rocket ended in an explosion seconds after ignition .
In April Japanese startup ispace failed in an ambitious attempt to become the first private company to land on the moon losing communication after what the firm called a hard landing. The mission went wrong and communications were lost. The launch of a new type of the Epsilon ended in March.
Japan has tried before attempting last year to land a lunar probe named Omotenashi but the mission goes wrong and the mission was lost. It has also tried before last year. It is expected to land again to land in August. It was also failed to land. In April.
It failed to launch again. In March. The rocket launched. In May. It launched. It also failed. In August. In July. It had failed to return to the lunar probe. In December. It will not return to Earth. In October. The moon. The lunar landing.
